#36

hello, i’m an Ableton Live Certified Trainer since version 8 and always recertified until now (version 10). i teach electronic music production, sound theory and sound design in two different schools in Milan, Italy (one a private school, the other a public institution) since about 10 years. i also offer private lessons. this represents my main income in the last years while i still do sound engineering and some mastering from time to time and of course i’m an electronic music performer and (sigh) producer , even if i dont really like the latter term.
feel free to ask questions about ableton live both here and via PM.
while in the last years i shifted back to hardware for my music and use ableton live mostly for recording, some minor editing and final touches to mixes and sometimes mastering, i still think it is one of the most versatile environments, especially since the addition of max for live.
even very simple m4l tools like LFO and Envelope Follower add a lot of power, especially if one wants to break free of the “usual” daw workflow.
what i always suggest to my students is to think of the session view as a great sketchpad tool, not only a place where to organize a live performance but also a very friendly environment for pre-production, a place where you can sketch up rhythmical, melodic and harmonic ideas without the burden of the linear timeline to oppress one’s own creativity. sometimes even for just 4 or 5 different clips for drums\percussions, a couple of basslines and other stuff…
then you switch to the arrangement view and start building up your piece. and the arrangement itself gives you hints about clip variations, transitions, effect automations and stuff like that.
so first advice is never underestimate the power of session view!
another thing that i find really priceless on Live is the ability to decouple automation loop length from clip\loop length (via the linked\unlinked button in the envelopes box of both audio and midi clips).
that can transform a simple automation into a powerful custom lfo or if clip automations are longer than the clip itself and you add some of them to different parameters, all of them unrelated to each other, with very odd lengths, you end up with infinitely evolving patterns that never repeat themselves even from the most basic of basslines!
clip launch properties are other little gems, especially the follow action function.

some of this stuff is very similar to some monome grid\ansible apps like kria (decoupled lengths for all parameters of sequencer tracks) or meadowphysics (follow actions: after this clip has played x times do the y thing)

https://www.ableton.com/en/pages/education/certified_training/trainers/giona_vinti/

9 Likes
#37

Check out point blank deconstruction videos on yt with ski oakenfull. Entertaining and educational

1 Like
#38

Could not agree more. I’ve been “learning” Ableton since fall 2017 (coming from Pro Tools/Logic) and I feel like I’m just now really getting great with it.

But the whole time I’ve been making tracks, some of which have been released - I just knew that I was doing things slowly and inefficiently and not using its full capabilities, and often I’d print stems into Pro Tools to finish the track quickly.

What I’ve been doing is just starting the same way I would in any program - with a beat, melody, or chord progression. When I hit a roadblock I google my way around it.

It took over 18 months for me to be fully “comfortable” in it, but now I can barely remember what life was like before it, and I just bought a Push 2 because I finally feel at the point where I confidently know how I’m going to use it.

So as the quote says, if you wait to create until you’ve “learned” Live, then you’re going to lose more time. Just start creating and learn as you go and don’t worry about if you’re using it “right”!!

12 Likes
#39

Progress report: “just use it and look stuff up when you get stuck” is the best advice I could have gotten. Looking back I sort of feel silly even making this thread! There is a ton of great information and practice techniques here and I’m grateful for that!

For anyone who cares: here’s a cute little teaser of a song I made yesterday. My drum programming/processing leaves a bit to be desired, but I’m figuring it out!

6 Likes
#40

I’ve been considering wiping all the presets and samples that shipped with Ableton - basically removing the entire library of sounds and presets and creating my own library. I think this would be a pretty cool journey.

I think I would most likely download the grand piano and orchestral libraries, aside from that I’d be creating my own samples and presets. My hope is that the instruments and effects become more like my instruments rather than a distracting, huge range of options.

3 Likes
#41

That was great! I felt an 80’s vibe from it, it reminded me of The Cure in a way.

#42

Thank you! I had initially set out to make a synthwave track, but I spent too much time goofing around with synth sounds, so I plugged in the guitar and this is what happened! I’m going to record vocals and post the full track within the next week hopefully!

#43

Firstly, congratulations on your new venture. You have a wonderful journey ahead.

My advice would be to do into the videos on Abletons website. They are taken from the incredible Loop conference. I was lucky enough to attend in 2015,16 and 17. It was the most life changing event I have ever had the pleasure of being part of.

And remember, make time to Play! :slight_smile:

1 Like
#44

I have two pieces of contradictory (or complementary) advice:

  1. One would be to find a YouTuber who makes tutorials at a level you think is good for you (YouSuckAtProducing is my current fave - I don’t like the name, but I always always always learn something I didn’t know about Ableton from his tutorials. Plus, he’s entertaining). The ProductionMusicLive Instagram is actually really good too (and each tutorial is shorter than a minute!)

EDIT: Oh, and also AbletonTips

  1. Find projects you want to complete and then, as others have suggested, use Google when you get stuck. The Disquiet Junto is a great resource for this, as are some parts of MIT’s OpenCourseware Making Music with Computers
7 Likes
#45

@howthenightcame @loma @petesasqwax

Regarding the questions about Ableton Drum racks. Let’s continue here! I might write the obvious but here goes:

A drum rack in Live is an instrument like an “empty mpc” that you drag in. It has 128 slots that can hold, well basically anything. If you drag in an audio-file on an empty pad, it will load an Ableton Simpler on that pad. This means you can go into that Simpler on the pad and tweak the sample how you want it.

Let’s say you want to create a layered kick-drum from three samples. You want the low boom from one, the hi click from another and the mid from a third.You can then CMD-drag (mac)/CTRL-drag these samples onto the same pad. They will now order themselves in three chains - and will be simultaneously triggered when the midi-note to the pad is received.

On another pad you want a snare. And you want a reverb on just the snare. So you drag the effect onto the snare-pad. Basically a pad in a drumrack can host anything, it’s like its own channel.

Chains - another great feature, that let you play multiple synths simultaneously, or have parallell processing with effects on the same channel etc.

5 Likes
#46

Wait… what? I could use a Drum Rack to host a VST synth?!

[EDIT: perhaps it’s worth posting this here and then editing it out of the Depth Year thread for housekeeping]

2 Likes
#47

Ha! I should know better than to claim I know it all :slight_smile:Let’s experiment and find out!

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#48

In that one post you’ve totally blown my mind - and I’ve spent the last few days doing nothing but play around with Drum Racks!

2 Likes
#49

Ok, so I just checked. I dragged Wavetable onto a pad, and yes it works. It triggers, but I wonder how I can get it to play different notes. I think I recall someone putting an Arpeggiator before an instrument on a drumrack pad. I’ll experiment a little and see what I can find.

3 Likes
#50

Ha - that’s exactly what I just tried! I dropped a VST in it and realised that I could assign which note it triggered using the Chain dialogue but there must be a way of doing it so that I don’t need a different instance running for each pad… I shall investigate further!

#51

I put a series of Midi-devices. An slow Arp into Chord, into Scale into a fasterArp :wink:

Plays nicely…

Links:

There are some drum rack techniques in this one too:

Ableton Live Drum Racks: Loading A VST Into Your Drum Rack

And of course:
https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/instrument-drum-and-effect-racks/

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#52

@janglesoul @petesasqwax @loma yes, much better to move the discussion here.

Thanks for the video and links. I’ll dig in when I get a chance!!

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#53

Thanks for the vid, @petesasqwax. And thank you @janglesoul for the links. I’ll have to dig in to drum racks this weekend.

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#54

I read this the other day, and now I’m thinking you could route the different chains to different rack slots?

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#55

Wow, I hadn’t even realised how little I have experimented with the MIDI effects!

1 Like